Scuba Cave
Location: Gainesville, Florida Date: May 19, 1990 Story On the afternoon of May 19, 1990, Jackie Galvin and her students, Dan, Allen, Chris, and Ken, went to a company picnic at a campground in Gainesville, Florida. After having lunch they suited up and headed for the spring in the center of the campground to begin their dive. Dan had 52 dives but the rest had less then 7 and were not experienced in cave diving. Dan and Jackie knew that you should never enter a cave without a spare set of tanks or a rescue line but the three rookies didn't. Jackie gave the signal to back out and she surfaced. But Dan, Chris, Ken, and Allen went into the cave and never came up. Jackie said she was mad but concern immediately changed to panic when she saw bubbles in the spring and she knew they had drowned. Dan, Allen, Chris, and Ken were lost in the cave and the O2 gauge now read zero. Dan got lost in the mud but managed to trigger his purge valve and surface. When he got out he saw an angry Jackie on the beach and asked her if he was the last one out. She told him he was the first one out and then he knew something was wrong. She said she was going in but decided against it because she did not have a rescue line, her tank was empty, and her suit did not have helmet lights so she had to go find Woody Jasper, who was at the picnic with them. Bob Weeks, who was also at the picnic, saw them come up and he asked them if they had diving equipment or were certified for cave diving. They said no and he ran off to get Woody. Bob approached Woody and told him that there were trapped divers. He told the rest of the people at the picnic to call 911, raced to his truck, and suited up. Each tank holds 40 gallons of compressed air to last for an hour but when a diver is in distress they hyperventilate and the air is used up in seconds instead of minutes. Woody knew he did not have much time. After an hour the spring stopped bubbling and Jackie knew they drowned. 10 years before Woody mapped this cave and knew there was a safety tunnel and air pocket nearby. He went in and saw that everyone's masks and tanks were on the floor. He found Allen on the ceiling , revived him with his purge gauge, and dragged him out. Allen was brought to the surface. Both of his lungs had collapsed. Cathy and the rest of the people came over and did CPR, flushed the water out of his system, and managed to revive him. Chris was found near where Allen was and gave the diver signal for help. Woody's purge valve revived him so all Woody had to do was hook his tank to Chris' mask and both of them surfaced. Ken was still in the cave. After an hour of searching Woody found him in the fetal position on the bottom. Despite CPR and EMS teams from three counties he was not revived and declared dead. Allen was transferred to a hospital in Miami where doctors reinflated his lungs in the hyperbaric chamber. They feared he would have permanent brain damage from being down in the cave. Allen survived but he vowed never to cave dive again. Chris and Dan still do scuba diving but they vowed never to go into another cave without training. Woody said this could have been avoided if they would have sought him out and received the proper training. Category:1990 Category:Florida Category:Diving Accidents Category:Drownings Category:Cave Rescues Category:Death